Overall, city crime is down, shootings up

Friday

Jan 10, 2014 at 9:08 PM

Matt Buedel of the Journal Star

PEORIA — Police are reporting a drop in property and violent crimes despite a surge in homicides in 2013, with the number of shooting incidents expected to rise through 2014, thanks to newly installed gunshot detection technology.

Statistics calculated by police showed a 60 percent rise in homicides in 2013 compared with the previous year, with 16 deaths recorded in 2013 — though police officially did not count one justifiable homicide, the death of a boy found in a refrigerator that was ruled a homicide, or the shooting death of a woman who was kidnapped from Pekin but whose body was found in Peoria.

Chief Steve Settingsgaard said the homicide rate was an outlier compared with other violent crime in 2013, seeming higher in part because of an unusually low year in 2012, when 10 murders were logged. Overall violent crime was down 15 percent between years, he said.

"The murder rate itself is such a poor indicator of crime and safety, but it is the one that it easy to fixate on," Settingsgaard wrote in an email response to questions. "I am not saying that any murder is acceptable, I'm just saying that statistically the rate is very unreliable and often misleading."

Overall, nine fewer people were shot in 2013 than the previous year, amounting to a 10 percent year-over-year decline in that category, according to police statistics. Officers tallied 87 people shot in 2012 and 78 people shot in 2013.

The number of people who sought treatment at Peoria hospitals for gunshot wounds once again diverged from police totals in 2013, but the year-over-year differences between hospital numbers in 2013 and 2012 showed a similar decline.

According to figures provided by OSF Saint Francis Medical Center, UnityPoint Health-Methodist and UnityPoint Health-Proctor, 50 people sought treatment for gunshot wounds at the three hospitals in 2013, compared with 58 in 2012.

The installation of gunshot detection technology in the final weeks of 2013 is expected to have a significant effect on gun-related statistics in the coming year.

ShotSpotter, an acoustic monitoring system that records and pinpoints the location of gunfire, recorded 55 incidents of gunfire in targeted areas of South Peoria and the West Bluff from Nov. 19 through Monday — not counting 58 incidents on New Year's Eve alone.

"Thus far, only 18 percent of the incidents of gunfire are being reported outside of the ShotSpotter notification, so this new technology is going to greatly drive up the numbers for several of the gun crime statistics," Settingsgaard wrote. "It will not be indicative of an increase in actual gunfire, but rather an increase in our awareness of it."

Matt Buedel can be reached at 686-3154 or mbuedel@pjstar.com. Follow him on Twitter @JournoBuedel.